Inheritance

CHAPTER 17

"I- I have more than enough, Shikamaru. Besides, they'd have to put me down for good before I'd let them get to you or Hana, whether or not I had enough chakra or not."

Naruto had hesitated, because that wasn't strictly true. In fact, he'd only really begun to feel any significant loss of chakra after the last bunch of Bunshin. He didn't particularly want Shikamaru however, to start getting too curious about exactly where he got his quite frankly massive reserves from. Whilst he knew the people his age would have to find out eventually, it could most definitely wait until he was ready to tell them on his own terms.

Noticing that the Nara had accepted his answer, and started to prepare his explosive tag, Naruto put his fledgling plan into motion. Two more Kage Bunshin appeared either side of him as the first of the Stone statues broke through the Bunshin he had created to help keep them at bay. They leapt forward, whips of lightning extending from each of their hands, crackling as they wrapped themselves around limbs of the statue. Yanking as hard as their straining limbs could manage, and increasing the amount of chakra they pumped into the jutsu, they tore the statues arms and legs away from it's torso, leaving the body of the statue momentarily suspended in the air.

"Fuuton: Daitoppa!"

The Kage Bunshin joined the original Naruto in performing his newest technique, and in an unusual moment of clarity in the moments before the vicious, cutting gale caused by the trio of Naruto copies hit it's mark, the blonde noticed he had improved, if only a little, with the jutsu.

Naruto's accuracy with the jutsu was once again exemplary, the raging torrent of chakra infused air colliding with their target at breakneck speed, grinding at the statue's body, causing it to crumble it rubble, just as Naruto had managed the first time.

And, just as the first time, an eerie red glow in the centre of the pile signalled the start of the reconstruction process.

"Shikamaru, now!" Naruto shouted, leaping back from the area close to the temporarily defeated statue. The Nara hadn't needed to be told, and already having prepared the tag, was simply waiting for Naruto to get out of range of the explosion, before throwing the tag towards the source of the glow that was emanating from the pile of rubble, a light 'fizz' the only evidence that the tag he had wrapped around a kunai to provide the weight required for it to make the distance, was a live explosive.

If Naruto was being honest, the explosion was underwhelming. He had only ever really seen one when he had used his Bunshin to avoid one in the Genin test. He could have sworn it looked much bigger when it was meant to blow him to smithereens.

Disappointing as it may have been to the Genin who, whilst having matured, still liked a good explosion every now and again (who didn't, after all); the tag did it's job, launching the already loose rubble across the canyon in all directions, and illuminating the darkened area inside the canyon rather well.

Neither Naruto or Shikamaru could resist a grin of triumph when, as the smoke from the explosion cleared, and the red glow from the seal was not visible, and the remains of the statue were showing no signs of pulling back together. It was only to be a short lived triumph as Naruto felt the last of his Bunshin that had been fighting the remaining statues was destroyed by a punch to the chest from a one armed statue, and that statue turned to face the Genin.

"Right." Naruto started, his voice uncharacteristically serious. "We know their held together by some kind of seal. Now, from what I know, the seal will be where their chakra is orientating from, and is what makes them so hard to destroy. From what I know, for the seal to work, the seal itself needs to be continuous, like a circuit. So what we need to do to ruin them, is break the circuit."